When the armies of the Prophet stormed forth from historic obscurity in Arabia and burst upon the enfeebled imperial boundaries, they knew nothing of the ecclesiastical rivalry between the thrones of Elder and New Rome.
I wish the controversy over confirming Judge Brett Kavanaugh had been about his court decisions on executive power, which I believe grant the chief executive too much authority. Instead, Democrats emphasized their prevailing issue, abortion. Of course, they say it’s about the unsubstantiated allegations against what he did when he was 17, or a bar fight in college. But if you listen to them, it’s really about abortion.
This essay on the Lega Nord was published in February of 1993, after I spend considerable time with members of the Lega and had secured a long interview (followed by subsequent briefer meetings) with Umberto Bossi. Now that the Lega is once again in the ruling coalition and facing the wrath of the EU for cracking down on Third World immigration, it seems a good time to take a second look.
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In this primitive period of East-West unity, Rome established its preeminence above all in the context of theological controversies, where it took on the role of unflinching champion of orthodoxy. The Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople had formulated a creed that became the universal bedrock of faith, but in a certain sense they did not go far enough, for they did not speak explicitly to the different theories about Jesus Christ, His personhood and natures, that arose and clashed in the fifth century. This was a matter of special concern for the emperors in Constantinople, who looked with anxiety to...
How John McCain’s funeral reunited the squabbling wings of the American Left.
I laughed when I read ex-CIA Czar John Brennan’s gripe that taking away his security clearance was “part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics.” I once had a security clearance. Although not as high as his, it was pretty high, Top Secret-Special Intelligence. When I was training to be a Russian linguist and radio intercept operator, 1978-89, the FBI talked to everybody in my background, asking such questions as: Did you ever vote for the Communist Party-USA? They talked to my next door neighbor, and receive a glowing report. “He’s been...
I have always thought that Jefferson’s advocacy of the separation of church and state was in part inspired by his distaste for the political power of the Yankee clergy. Remember, the famous letter about “the wall of separation” was addressed to a group of Baptists in Connecticut, who were independent of that State’s established Puritan church. One can still find die-hard Calvinists who denounce Jefferson as an atheist. For some reason they never mention that John Adams became a Unitarian. Through the 19th century Jefferson remained a very popular symbol among the people and occasionally among writers, but New...
Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences [that is, scandals, stumbling blocks] will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
